Lake Norman Real Estate and NC Homes for Sale

Unless you have been hibernating for the past 6 months or more, you have probably read more than your share of news articles about the demise of the U.S. housing market, the collapse of the subprime lending market, and the record number of foreclosures

I always caution my clients that most of what they read pertains to the national economy, or even the greater Charlotte housing market not specifically to the Lake Norman area.  Even lumping all of the Lake Norman real estate together doesn't give you a clear enough picture to know whether you should buy or sell. 

Our inventory of listings and number of sales vary dramatically by community and even by subdivision so I can't emphasize enough the importance of having your Realtor provide you with data that is specific to your own subdivision, location and price range.

Here is a snapshot of the Lake Norman real estate market as of today, September 19, 2007 according to the Charlotte Regional Multiple Listing Service data:

Greater Lake Norman Area including Troutman, Mooresville, Davidson, Cornelius, Huntersville, Lincoln County/Denver, Catawba County/Sherrills Ford and Terrell:

• There are currently a total of 1330 active listings
• 209 listings are currently under contract 
• In the past 30 days, 124 listings sold or closed.  These sold listings were on the market an average of 106 days.  If our sales continued at 124 per month we would run out of listings in 10.7 months so we have 10.7 months of supply on hand.  The average, balanced market would have about an 8 month supply on hand. 
• In the exact same 30-day period last year we sold 153 listings so that means that our number of sales in Lake Norman has dropped -19% versus the same period in 2006.

Area 13/1 (Troutman and South to Hwy 150):

• There are currently a total of 204 active listings
• 16 listings are currently under contract
• In the past 30 days, 15 listings sold or closed.  These sold listings were on the market an average of 110 days.  If our sales continued at 15 per month we would run out of listings in 13.6 months so we have 13.6 months of supply on hand.  This is quite a bit higher than the balanced market of 8 months supply

Area 13/2 (Mooresville from Hwy 150 South to the Davidson border): 

• There are currently a total of 442 active listings
• 61 listings are currently under contract
• In the past 30 days, 31 listings sold or closed.  These sold listings were on the market an average of 143 days.  If our sales continued at 31 per month we would run out of listings in 14.3 months so we have 14.3 months of supply on hand.  This is almost twice as much as a balanced market should have.

Area 13/3 (Davidson, Cornelius and Huntersville):

• There are currently a total of 204 active listings
• 42 listings are currently under contract
• In the past 30 days, 24 listings sold or closed.  These sold listings were on the market an average of 104 days.  If our sales continued at 46 per month we would run out of listings in 8.5 months so we have 8.5 months of supply on hand.  This is almost exactly a balanced market!

Area 13/4 (Denver/Lincoln County):

• There are currently a total of 293 active listings
• 63 listings are currently under contract
• In the past 30 days, 39 listings sold or closed.  These sold listings were on the market an average of only 69 days!  If our sales continued at 39 per month we would run out of listings in 7.5 months so we have 7.5 months of supply on hand. This is actually slightly UNDER a balanced market!

Area 13/5 (Sherrills Ford, Terrell, Catawba County up to the river)

• There are currently a total of 187 active listings
• 27 listings are currently under contract
• In the past 30 days, 15 listings sold or closed.  These sold listings were on the market an average of 128 days.  If our sales continued at 15 per month we would run out of listings in 12.5 months so we have 12.5 months of supply on hand.  This is 50% over a balanced supply.

Summary

If we consider the amount of listings per area and the average days a listing takes to sell, clearly the Denver area is flourishing and is even slightly understocked for their current sales trend.  The Mecklenburg towns are also looking very healthy.  Please remember that we are only talking about the lake properties, not the entire towns.  The weakest sales with the most imbalanced amount of active listings would be the area south of Hwy 150 down to Langtree. 

Because of these numbers I decided to look at a couple of the largest subdivisons:

The Point:  88 Active Listings, 11 listings under contract, 4 sold in the past 30 days in an average of 162 days on the market.  If this sales trend continued they would have 22 months of supply on hand.

The Farms:  52 Active Listings, 8 listings under contract, 5 sold in the past 30 days in an average of 423 days on the market (I will check this number).  If this sales trend continued they would have 10.4 months of supply on hand.

The Harbour:  16 Active Listings, 3 listings under contract, 1 sold in the past 30 days in an average of 20 days on the market (I found that the average over the summer was 3 sales per month).   If this sales trend continued they would have about 6 months of supply on hand.

Please remember that this is just a "snap shot" of the past month.  However, it is safe to say that we currently have a higher inventory of active listings than normal and that the sales volume around the lake is down about 20%.  However, areas like Denver are very strong.  Generally, we are seeing most of the sales activity in the low price ranges up to $250,000 and, to a lesser degree, above $1,000,000. 

My quarterly sales analysis for the 3rd quarter will be out in early October and as always I will break down the sales by price range.  In the meantime, please add comments or questions or feel free to email me for more information.

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